Djamila Bouhired

Djamila Bouhired (1935-) was an Algerian FLN member and the personal assistant of FLN leader Saadi Yacef during the Algerian War.

Biography
Djamila Bouhired was born in 1935 to a middle-class Sunni Muslim Berber family in French North Africa, and she attended a French school. Whenever the Algerian students shouted "France is our mother" at the start of the school day, she shouted "Algeria is our mother", leading to her being disciplined by the school administrators. She was responsible for one of the September 1956 Algiers bombings, attacking the cafe on the Rue Michelet with a bomb hidden in her bag. Her beauty allowed her to bypass the French Army soldiers, but in June 1957 she would be captured and tortured. In July 1957, she was tried for the killing 11 French civilians in a cafe bombing, and the French lawyer Jacques Verges decided to help her in her case, blaming the French government for the attacks. Nevertheless, Bouhired was sentenced to death by guillotine; her execution would be postponed due to a drop in public opinion, and she was released in 1962 after Algeria became independent. In 1963, she married Verges, and she lived with him in Algiers, supporting various other militant causes.